But Worth It
by My Beautiful Ending
Summary: Her summers are hot, long, and boring so far away from her home, so when the Doctor, Martha, Grace, and Tegan land in the middle of her stepmom's begonias, she doesn't really mind. Written for a oneshot competition.


_**But Worth It**_

(Written for Zoe Alice Latimer and Sara Eleanor Rose's oneshot competition.)  
>(I tried a different type of writing thing for me, so let's see how it goes.)<p>

Every summer, she had to planet hop from her home of Castrolophasia where she lived with her mom to her dad's home planet of Rigel Six (yes, named after the old-Earth Star Trek one). She didn't like it all that much. (The planet and the move in general were disagreeable, she meant; the planet hop was actually kind of fun in the shuttlecraft, and she always met some pretty interesting people on it.) In fact, she might go so far as saying she disliked it with extreme intensity. (You can't actually hate inanimate objects like planets. She could hate her stepmom, but she figured that it does take two people to make a divorce happen, and it wasn't entirely her dad's fault for wandering. Besides, hating Miranda would be petty. She was above petty. Sort of. [That incident with the grapefruit didn't really count.])

She had had to planet hop during the summer ever since she was ten, and she was going on seven years of it. It was safe to say that it was wearing on her.

So anyway, she was usually stuck on this planet with her father and her stepmom, stranded from her friends and with nothing to do. Her dad was usually at work, like he was right now, and her stepmom was out shopping. (Seriously, Miranda was going crazy now that she was four months pregnant. Really, how much stuff did a baby nursery need?)

She was fighting the yawn-impulse just sitting here on the porch steps in the back yard. And honestly, heat wasn't her thing. She was sweltering in a tank top and cutoffs and bare feet. And _bored._

Even super-interactive devices with every type of game and work system possible loaded onto them got old after a while.

And she had to admit; today was even more hot and boring than usual, so when the blue box materialized in the middle of her stepmom's begonias, she didn't really mind. She didn't especially like begonias in general, and these were a rather ugly variety.

She had been using her PHIMD (Palm Held Interactive Multipurpose Device) to read old-earth books to pass the time, but the VWORP-VWORP-VWORP noise and the wind (what nice wind, after such heat) distracted her. Now she laid it aside as the doors on the blue box opened to admit four people out into her back yard.

The tallest, a man with brown hair, promptly drew a hand over his brow and removed his long coat, tossing it back into the box. "It seems a bit _warm _for the mountains…" he said.

"I'm gonna guess that this _isn't_ the Greater Slastic Alps," the dark skinned woman said, giving him a stern glare. She tossed her leather jacket in with his. "Who taught you how to drive that thing?"

"Oi!" he protested, looking injured.

The two other girls looked about her own age. One was short; the other was average height. Both wore glasses and had brown hair, though the shorter one's hair was more reddish than the other's. The shorter one elbowed the other girl and muttered, "Told you he'd get it wrong again. Pay up!"

"We didn't bet," the other hissed. "We both knew he'd muck it up. It's like his M.O. or something."

The tall man seemed to be pretending not to hear them.

At some point, all four of them seemed to realize that they weren't alone. It was like a slow burn (as her drama teacher would say) towards her all at once.

"Don't mind me," she said from her place on the steps, unperturbed and horribly amused. "This is very interesting. Please, go on." Her lips parted in a smile.

The man coughed and said, "Hello, I'm the Doctor, and this is Martha, Garace, and Tegan. We, um…" he seemed to take in his surroundings. "We seem to have landed in your flower bed."

"Oh, it's not mine," she said, leaning her chin on the palm of her hand. "It's my stepmom's. She's probably gonna kill you when she gets home."

He shuddered imperceptibly. _Fear of wrath in general, or of mothers?_ She wondered.

"So, um, where exactly are we?" Garace asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Rigel Six," she said, raising an eyebrow. Did they really not know?

"Rigel Six!" The man exclaimed. "Oh, of course! That explains it!"

The brown-skinned woman frowned at him.

"Rigel Six is in almost the exact same placement as the Greater Slastic Alps," he went on explaining, "just in the opposite direction. First colonized by humans in 3055, Rigel Six was first owned by a billionaire who had a love for Star Trek."

"So what you're saying is," the woman said slowly, "we went the wrong way."

"Um. Well…yes." He shoved his hands in his pockets and seemed to grow thinner.

The shorter girl –Tegan? –turned away from the scene and back towards her. "Is your hair naturally green?" Tegan asked, staring curiously.

"Yes," she replied, used to the strange question. It was either the hair or the eyes, one of the two. Green hair and purple eyes usually stuck out in a crowd. No one usually noticed the elongated canines right off the bat. "My mom's a Phasian. Dad's human."

"Oh, that is fascinating!" the Doctor said, bounding toward her in a way that made her jump. "Phasian's are from Castrolophasia, and have the ability to change their appearance at will!"

"Shape shifters?" Garace asked.

"No, not as such," the Doctor said. "They don't actually turn into other creatures; they keep their humanoid form. More like…" he searched for the right explanation.

"Like what Tonks is, from Harry Potter?" Tegan asked. "A metamorphmagus?"

"Yes, exactly!" the Doctor said, smiling at her. "Except, not fictional."

She got the reference; she had finished the old-earth Harry Potter series the summer before. "I don't shift, though," she put in. "I just look strange. Can I ask you something?" she asked, changing the subject.

He nodded.

"How do four people fit into a blue box? And does your teleportation matrix not have a landing zone? Because you'd know that you landed here if you did."

"It's not _teleportation,_" the Doctor said, taken aback. "_Nothing_ so crude as that. And as for the size… see for yourself," he said, opening the doors. He had a rather smug, pleased look on his face.

She got up from her porch steps and dusted off her cutoffs, crossing the emerald green grass to peek inside.

The noise she made was very strange as she took in the huge room with a tall vaulted ceiling and a center control panel covered in metal and rock. The lights glowed from every direction.

"It sounded like, 'manamana'," Garace told Tegan.

"You've got Muppets on the brain," she said, "Left over from that visit to Jim Henson. It was more like 'Omayomngidhhhs'."

"Pretty much," she said, still staring. "It goes up a long way," she said, craning her neck.

"Hmm," the Doctor said, looking confused. "Most people say it's bigger on the inside…"

"Sorry," Martha said, throwing the Doctor an irritated glance. _"Someone_ let his mind run away with him and forgot to be polite. What's your name?" She flashed a friendly smile.

"Aloysia," she said, smiling.

"Ohhh!" The Doctor's eyes lit up like lanterns. "Not quite Alonso, but it would work!"

"Work for what?" Martha asked.

"See, I'd love to meet someone who was named Alonso, because then I could say_ Allons-y Alonso_, and it would sound brilliant," the Doctor explained.

"COUGH fullofhimself COUGH," one of the two girls muttered, Aloysia wasn't fast enough to tell which one it had been.

Suddenly, down her street of eco-friendly homes, someone screamed bloody murder and something exploded. All of them jumped. The Doctor whipped out some sort of device that scanned and bleeped, and he muttered, "Oh, not good, not good at all!" He shoved it in his pocket and closed the doors to the blue box.

"Danger?" Martha asked.

"Probably," he said.

"Running?" Tegan said.

"Definitely," Garace answered for him.

"Are you coming, Aloysia?" The Doctor said, already heading towards the sound, but running backwards so he could see her.

She smiled, showing her long, sharp teeth. Her summer sure wasn't boring anymore. "Of course."  
>He grinned and turned back around, now running full out. "Allons-y Aloysia!"<p>

She laughed and ran after him, keeping up with Garace and Tegan, with Martha just in front of them. "Is he always like this?"

"Oh, yes!" Garace said.

"But worth it," Tegan added.

_I can tell,_ she thought. _Most definitely. _


End file.
